


In Other Hands

by birdzilla



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:41:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7926283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdzilla/pseuds/birdzilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shiro and Allura's first night together is interrupted by the return of more bad memories, but Allura is there to look after her lover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the night of

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to [a prompt](https://voltron-kink.dreamwidth.org/1161.html?thread=23433#cmt23433) on the Voltron kinkmeme. The original prompt was:
>
>> Shiro has sex (preferably with Allura, although other characters are accepted) for the first time since he escaped. Unfortunately, the feeling of hands and a mouth (oh btw I’m cool with poly ships) touching him in a sexual way prompts a horrifying flashback of him being raped by aliens back in Galra prison. He discovers that he was raped in real time as he’s having sex, and he does not manage to hide his reaction. (I'm thinking a panic attack with full on hyperventilating, but feel free to follow your heart.) Cue concern, horror, and cuddles from his partner(s). And then perhaps some fluffy, gentle sex, who knows.
> 
> I've made some minor edits for clarity and done some general polishing. I would like to note that this is the most explicit story I've ever written, and I am open to constructive feedback!

"This isn't actually an Earth tradition," Shiro said as they crossed through the doorway into Allura's room, looking up at her from a remarkably comfortable position in her arms. "You don't _have_ to carry me across the threshold."

"I don't know, Lance was very insistent," Allura said, and when she looked down at him, her eyes were sparkling. "But if you really want me to set you down-"

She spread her arms, dropping Shiro out of the bridal carry and straight onto her bed. He fell back against the sheets and smiled at her, feeling his stomach flip at the sight of her standing tall and graceful at the foot of the bed. She smiled back, warm and happy and with a nervous edge that paradoxically made him feel more comfortable--it meant he wasn't the only one. "So you're playing rough tonight?"

"I _would_ like to tear your clothes off of you," Allura said, falling onto the bed beside him and reaching out to slide a hand along his neckline. She stopped there, though, and gave him a more serious look. "If that's all right with you?"

Her fingers were just shy of the pulse-point at the base of his neck. Shiro lost the thread of the conversation in a rush of heat, and it took him a moment to reply. "Fine," he managed.

Allura leaned in to give him a gentle kiss. Shiro relaxed into it, rolling up onto his right side and reaching out to pull Allura close. After a minute her free hand slipped up his back, under his shirt, and she broke the kiss long enough to tug him up into a sitting position on the bed.

"I don't actually want to tear this off," Allura said, tugging at the hem of his shirt, "but I would like to see you without it." The look she gave him stole the breath from his throat, and Shiro wasted no time in shrugging off his shirt. She reached out to touch the skin he'd exposed, tracing a finger down the line of his collarbones.

Just the simple stroking of her fingers lit a low fire in Shiro's belly, and he bit back a gasp. It wasn't the first time Allura had touched him like this, but it was the first time she hadn't had to reach under his shirt to do so. Allura smiled at him, happy and bright, and Shiro felt heat pinken his cheeks and flare low in his belly. He'd always loved the way her eyes crinkled and her lips curved up when she smiled, but it had never had _this_ effect before.

"Oh, look!" she exclaimed, spreading her fingers over his pectorals and admiring the way his pink nipples were pebbling up under the brush of her slender, dark hands. "They don't go stiff like this on Altaen men. That's all right, isn't it?"

She looked worried, and Shiro chuckled and reached up to cover one of her hands with his own. "That's a good sign," he told her. "It's because your hands feel good."

"Oh, do they?" In an instant, Allura's anxious look had turned mischievous. She slid her free hand down his chest, pausing to trace the lower line of his pectoral muscles, then continuing along his stomach to his belly button. There she stopped, slipping the tip of a finger into it, and giving a gentle push.

Shiro's stomach lurched, inexplicably, and he had the horrible ghost-sense of another set of fingers, probing against his belly, and a strange voice in his ears.

_"-ain't nothing interesting, you wanna look lower down-"_

Allura had noticed the way he froze, and he cursed himself silently at the worried look on her face. "What's wrong, Shiro? Did I hurt you?"

"No," Shiro said, trying to shake off whatever the flash of sense-memory had been. One of the toughs who had handled the gladiators, maybe, patching him up? It didn't matter. He didn't want those kinds of thoughts to intrude on this precious moment. "I'm sorry, I- that's my bellybutton," he said, abandoning an explanation in favor of staring at Allura's eyes. "It's where the umbilical cord attaches while a baby is in the placenta."

"An umbilical cord... you're a placental species?" Allura said, brightening with interest. "I thought it was your pouch, but if you're placental, you must not have one. But your bellybutton is adorable."

Shiro was a bit at sea, but he didn't want to derail his arousal right now with questions. Not so long as Allura seemed satisfied with his anatomy, and her dark flush and slightly parted lips suggested that she had no objections. He reached out and rested two fingers at the top of the seam down her front, raising an eyebrow at her. "Can I?"

Allura laughed, then touched a hidden button at her neck, releasing the seal on her bodice. "Please."

Shiro slowly started pulling the seam apart from the top down, revealing widening curves of dark, smooth skin. His fingers brushed that skin over and over again as he tugged the fabric gently apart, soft as silk against the calluses on his left hand and warm against the cool metal of his right, and he breathed in the faintly spicy floral scent that Allura wore in her hair.

"Shiro, please," Allura said, her voice breathy, and pulled back just far enough to grab the edges of the seam, pull it apart all the way, and wriggle the rest of the way free. Shiro was mesmerized by the twist of her body as she squirmed out of the arms, her breasts swaying gently as she shook the shirt off and abandoned it on the bed behind her. She smiled at him, hair tousled halfway out of its elaborate arrangement. "You'll have more than one chance to do that. You don't have to spend all night on it."

"But what if I wanted to spend all night on it?" Shiro deadpanned.

"Well, that's too bad, because I want to spend all night on other things," Allura said, her smile almost a smirk, and then leaned in to kiss him again.

_"-too bad, because you get to spend all night with them-"_

This time, Allura must have taken Shiro's stiffness as surprise, his hiss of breath as a gasp, because she laughed into his mouth and slid her arms around his shoulders, pressing them close. Shiro managed to keep himself from shuddering as he came back to himself.

As soon as his senses were his own again, he was overwhelmed by the soft press of her breasts against his chest and the scent of her loosened hair framing her face, too overwhelmed to dwell too much on that flash of memory. He didn't have to think through his response; his hands moved of their own accord, the left rising to cup the side of her breast, the right sliding down her side to rest lightly on the curve of her hip, two fingers slipping below the waistband of her skirt.

Allura didn't seem to mind; she shivered pleasantly in his arms, then laughed again, shifting closer until she was straddling his lap. Shiro's breath caught, and more heat flared in his groin, something hungry starting to rouse inside him. Allura shifted in his lap, paused, and then, to his immense disappointment, pulled back from the kiss.

"My goodness, Shiro," she said, eyes wide and ears twitching, and skimmed one hand down his chest to spread her palm out over his crotch. She pressed there just a little, and Shiro was embarrassed by the speed with which his body responded to that gentle pressure. Allura had already moved on to fumbling with the buttons of his fly, bright-eyed and excited. "Can I look?"

"Of course," Shiro said, rising up onto his knees and shimmying a bit to help her get his pants down around his thighs. Then he fell down onto his heels with a groan when she immediately curled her fingers around his rising erection. "Allura," he gasped.

"Is this all right?" Allura asked, sliding her hand slowly downward. "It's a bit like an Altaen male's, but it's much... _more_ than I expected. And they don't have-"

_"-don't have our business hanging out for anyone to dig their claws in, either," the Galra gladiator was sneering into his ear, stroking his clawtips over Shiro's balls with just enough force for Shiro to feel the threat. He jerked his shoulders, as if the twitchy motion could throw his assailant off, and was rewarded with a flare of pain through torn and locked-up back muscles that made him sob into the floor. The Galra chuckled throatily and shifted his weight to dig his knees in even harder into the backs of Shiro's thighs._

"Shiro?" Allura said, and her gentle voice and worried look brought him back to the here and now.

Shiro took a deep breath and considered, for just a second, telling her what he had just remembered. Allura would understand if they had to stop-

But he didn't _want_ to stop. Whatever fragmented memory was trying to stir itself, he didn't want it to poison their precious first night together. Shiro smiled at her, as confidently as he could manage when he still felt chilled. "I'm fine." Allura looked doubtful, and he reached down to shift the position of her hand, moving it back up to less fraught territory. "That's a, a very sensitive area, and it's been- a long time," he said, aware of how lame the excuse must sound. "It's... more sensation than I'm ready for yet."

Apparently, the species difference was enough to explain the reaction to Allura. "We'll save it for later," she said, and straddled his lap again, her skirt a muffling, maddening layer between them. Shiro had to fight the urge to arch up and rub against her through the cloth.

It was his turn to lean in and kiss her, rising up to meet her mouth with his. She moaned sweetly into the kiss, and Shiro moved lower down, kissing the fine, clean line of her jaw, and then the delicate arch of her neck below it. Allura moaned again and grabbed at his right shoulder, fingers clutching almost bruisingly tight-

_-a grasping, four-fingered hand clenched around his mangled right shoulder, the thin-fingered grip weak under any other circumstance but painfully tight around the injured joint. Shiro yelped, muffled, jerking back and knocking the back of his skull against the floor in a struggle to get away, but the woman still holding his left arm in a painful grip twisted it harder, so that he could only squirm helplessly between the two equally agonizing inputs._

_"Keep your teeth to yourself and I won't have to hurt you again," the alien hissed, creaky-voiced, into his ear, and pushed a long mating tendril further into his mouth. Shiro gagged on the wet, pulsing thickness of it, and had to struggle not to bite again as he choked. The alien's grip loosened, but its hand stayed light on his shoulder in warning._

"Shiro! Shiro, are you all right?" Allura was saying anxiously as her face swam back into his vision. Her eyes were wide and anxious, and her hair was in disarray. Shiro realized that he'd fallen--or maybe jumped--backward, and was sprawled against the broad metal rail of her bed. "Is that shoulder more sensitive? Did I damage anything?"

Shiro was breathing hard, shivering as the sense-memory of pain ran through him. He shook his head mutely, struggling to speak. He could still feel the thick, fleshy tendril, dripping with sour-tasting goo, push against the back of his throat.

"Here, you should lie down," Allura said worriedly. She slid one hand up Shiro's bare ribs on his right, settling it gently over his side just below his armpit. Then, even more carefully, she grasped his left forearm and started to lift him up, clearly meaning to shift him over and lay him out on the bed. Shiro's left hand spasmed, and he grabbed unthinkingly at her elbow-

_-trying to shove the alien woman away before she could flip him over. She smashed his fingers with the heel of her hand and then grabbed his arm again, twisting it painfully behind him as she shoved him down onto his back, and he sobbed under his breath. The yellow fringe of spines atop her pebbled head spread out wide in an ironic halo as she straddled his waist, and she ran a hand down the trail of hair descending from his bellybutton and grasped his half-hard cock in a punishing grip._

_"Flattering,_ Champion _," she said, twisting the title into a mocking sneer. "Still want blood, or is there something else you're looking for?"_

_The last thing that Shiro wanted was her hand on him, but she ignored his protests and continued to work at his erection. His body, weakened and battered as it was, proved traitor; pain it could withstand, but it was so starved for pleasurable touch that even this rude handling won its loyalty. When he'd roused to her satisfaction, she sank down onto him in one fast, hard movement, clenching hot and tight around him. Shiro could only sprawl under her, his thigh muscles trembling like jelly as he was caught between the satisfaction of instinctual desire and a feeling of violation that made his stomach clench and his skin crawl. This was worse than the Galra man had been, pressing into him, because at least then his body and his mind had been of one accord._

_"Get off, get_ off _," he snarled at her, bucking violently, and then realizing his mistake-_

-and Allura let go of him and almost fell backward in her haste to get away. "Shiro! What--are you remembering something?" she asked, her wide eyes going narrow as she put the pieces together. She crouched on the bed and reached out towards him. "It's all right, Shiro. I'm right here."

He knew it was Allura, knew that her touch would be gentle and that she only wanted to help, but his heart was racing and every muscle was tense in anticipation of grasping hands and further pain. Shiro flung himself sideways off of the bed and crashed painfully onto the floor-

_-striking the hard metal and bouncing like a ragdoll. He spasmed in pain, tried to curl in on himself, and spasmed again as his back screamed a protest. One of the handlers who'd flung him down into the cell laughed, harsh and mocking, and kicked him in the legs._

_"Tomorrow you get a healing pod, Champion. For now you're stuck with the tender mercies of your friends in here."_

_Shiro moved his head just enough to see the shadowed shape in one corner, the brightly-scaled reptilian standing in another, and the spindly, bony figure crouched on the cell's only cot. He knew all three of those figures--he'd taken an eye from the Galra man, he'd clashed with the Komad woman over her butchery of a weaker victim of the arena, and he'd never fought the venomous Spirlak, but it had scoffed at the Champion plenty of times as it skittered past Shiro's cell on its way to the ring._

_"They're not my friends," he said._

_The handler laughed again, even harsher. "Heh, that's too bad, because you get to spend all night with them."_

_She kicked him again, hard enough to make him shout, then stepped out of the cell before he could think about starting to stand. The door hadn't even finished closing when the Spirlak lunged at him, four long, many-jointed hands seeking purchase-_

-tangled in the sheets-

_-and as soon as the Spirlak had delivered its enervating venom and retreated to leisurely wait out its effects, the Galra gladiator was on top of him, grabbing his wrists and slamming him down onto his stomach with both arms twisted across his back. His right arm felt like it was being wrenched off at the elbow, and Shiro screamed into the metal floor._

_The Galra chuckled directly into his ear and let his wrists go, shifting to plant one elbow between Shiro's shoulderblades. That left him with another hand free to slide down Shiro's back, shredding the remains of his shirt away with sharp claws, and then dig his fingers into his waistband. He knelt on top of Shiro's legs, pinning Shiro at both ends, and nudged with one knee until Shiro was spread open under him. "So, Champion, how are we going to while away the night?" he purred._

_Shiro's stomach dropped at the implication in the Galra's voice. Skin crawling with horror, he struggled to pull his functioning left arm up against his side, so that maybe he could shove himself on his elbow and get some kind of leverage against the Galra's weight. Before he could do that, though, the Komad woman's broad foot slammed down on his hand, and he yelled-_

-and snarled, against all good sense, at Allura when she reached over the edge for him. "Stay back!" He almost didn't recognize the hoarse voice as his own.

Allura stopped straining towards him, scrambled off the other side of the bed, and came around, holding her hands low and still in front of her. Shiro retreated anyway, squirming backwards in the mess of sheets until they started to slip free, and then tore himself the rest of the way loose and backed into the wall.

His metal arm hummed quietly as he held it in front of him, the edge of his hand turned to a purple-glowing blade. He was panting for air, huge wheezing breaths that didn't seem to suck any oxygen past the tight band locked around his chest. He was aware that Allura still stood in front of him--out of arm's reach, too far away to hurt--but all he could see was the purple and red lighting of the Galra ship. His back was against the smooth metal wall of Allura's room, but all he could feel was a hard plane of muscle and fur against his back, the press of rough-scaled skin against his abdomen, and spindly fingers digging into his shoulders and the side of his jaw.

He had--he had _won_ the fight just before this, Shiro remembered, suddenly and distinctly. He had won it badly injured, his right arm mangled, something in his back pulled so terribly that he'd been unable to straighten all the way when they tried to make him stand, but he'd brought down his opponent. And he'd even kept the poor alien child they pitted him against alive; he'd realized almost too late that his opponent, huge and hard-shelled and sharp-toothed as it had seemed to him, had been crying out in fear and not aggression. He'd been at once proud of that victory and disgusted by it. And the audience had been openly put out by his refusal to make a killing blow.

The gladiator handlers had meant for what happened to happen, Shiro was sure of it. When they'd dragged him back out of the cell the next morning they hadn't been surprised; they'd laughed, darkly, and mocked his pained stagger. He shuddered anew at the memory of their hands on him, their roughly impersonal touch just as awful in its own way as the mock-caresses of the Galra gladiator. Chest tight, he swallowed dryly, then tried again to suck in enough air that he wouldn't feel like he was drowning.

"Shiro," Allura said, soft and urgent. "Shiro, look at me."

She didn't try to move towards him again, or even to reach out, hugging herself instead. If he'd seen such a sight earlier Shiro would have thought that the slim grace of her nude form, arms tucked under her breasts, could have driven every other thought out of his head. But right now he couldn't even take it in.

Determination settled over distress on her face. "Shiro, cover your mouth," she ordered, raising one hand to cover her own.

The instruction was so nonsensical that Shiro automatically followed it, clamping his left hand over his mouth. As soon as he'd squeezed his lips closed over his frantic wheezing, he found himself sucking air in through his nose instead.

With those laboring breaths, now that he wasn't trying to breathe entirely through his mouth, came the spice-and-flowers scent that Allura had been wearing in her hair. At once the room seemed less threatening, the harsh purple-red light of the Galra ship fading back to Allura's soothing lavender, the metal behind him smooth and faintly warm and humming with a familiar, purely mechanical energy. The dizzying vertigo that had accompanied the false sensations faded with them, though his there was still a dull pounding in his temples. He forced his right arm down to his side, and heard it fall silent as it returned to its normal form.

"Can I come closer, Shiro?" Allura asked.

"I- I think so," Shiro said through his fingers, flattening his metal hand against the wall behind him. Then, because it didn't feel like enough, he slid slowly down the wall until he was sitting on the floor against it, knees up against his chin and metal arm half-tucked behind his back. "Be careful."

He couldn't look at her as she stepped over the shredded tangle of sheets and walked up. Even if he could no longer _feel_ the alien flesh against his own, he could still _remember_ it, and the memory didn't make his skin crawl any less. He felt like he was slicked over with a layer of grease and grime, and the thought of Allura touching that nonexistent filth filled him with senseless dread.

Thankfully, she didn't try. She just crouched in front of him, some disarranged locks of hair slipping over her shoulder, and Shiro took a few more deep breaths to catch the fullness of its scent. There had never been any odor like this in the Galra prisons, he thought; sharp scents and sour ones, the citrus tang of spilled alien blood and the ozone smell of deadly machinery coming to life, but nothing like flowers. Nothing sweet.

He reached out with his left hand and caught up the loosened locks, pulling them towards himself and breathing deep. Then he flushed, realizing how he must look sniffing her hair, and looked up.

Allura didn't say a word about the gesture. She just smiled at him, small and worried and heartfelt, and reached out to touch his face, stopping less than an inch away and waiting for him to give her a tiny nod before she finally let her fingers brush over his cheek. "What was it?"

"In the prison," Shiro said, leaning leaning into her touch. He felt himself breathe in harshly through his mouth again, stopped himself, and took a moment to focus on breathing in and out through his nose before he resumed. "When they had me fight in gladiatorial matches. I was badly injured in one of them, and they left me alone overnight in a cell with. Some of the other gladiators." He hesitated, swallowing and feeling nothing but a thick slime on the back of his tongue.

"And they hurt you," Allura said. Ire flashed across her face, and Shiro couldn't help but flinch from it; she gentled her expression immediately, though he could still see the rage banked behind her eyes. "They touched you like I did, didn't they? What did they-"

"I think it was planned," Shiro interrupted, plowing through her question because the thought of trying to answer it made him want to be sick. He looked down at the soft curve of her shoulder and let his eyes linger on the hints of bone beneath the muscle to keep from meeting her gaze. "They weren't afraid of any punishment for doing it. And they never would have all been in the same cell otherwise. I'd made the handlers angry--it was a child, Allura, I think it was screaming for its _mother_ \--and ruined the match. So it was punishment... or a warning." Frustration boiled in him, sudden and sharp, anger he hadn't expected surfacing through the only channel he dared give it. "It might have worked. I don't remember what came after."

He could see the questions on Allura's face, but she didn't try to pry at the disjointed narrative. Instead she leaned close, pausing to search his face for a second and then pressing her lips to his forehead in a gentle kiss. "Whatever happened next, it wasn't your fault," she said. "It was on the Galra's heads. All of this is."

Shiro closed his eyes and reached up, hands settling against her sides. He tucked his head against her collarbone and leaned in against her shoulder for a moment, taking her in--not just the scent in her hair, but the smooth softness of her skin, the swell of fat and muscle, the sharp edge of bone underneath it poking through to press an uncomfortable ridge against his eyebrow. That, more than anything, helped him settle. The scent, the softness, the graceful hand cupping the back of his skull, all of those could have been a fantasy, but the edge of discomfort was real.

It couldn't have been comfortable for Allura, thought. Reluctantly, Shiro pulled back and looked up to her face. Allura met his eyes, her gaze searching; whatever she found in him made her expression soften. She kissed him again, a quick, affectionate peck on the lips, and reached back to fiddle with her hair. "This helped, didn't it?" she asked, letting it fall in loose white waves around her.

"It's the way your hair smells," he admitted, feeling himself pinken. "It's... grounding."

"It's a perfume made from kolliss flowers. It's very, ah, stimulating, for Altaens. I wasn't sure if it would work on humans. I guess we'll have to test it again next time." Allura smiled and tapped a finger against her lips, and for a moment she looked almost mischievous again. Shiro couldn't help but smile back at her. "Would you like to get back in bed? I don't think we should try again tonight," she added quickly, before Shiro himself could figure out if the pulse in his stomach was interest or alarm. "And we can go somewhere else or walk around in the castle, if that would make you feel better. But I don't want you to spend all night on the floor."

Shiro thought he could easily have spent all night on Allura's floor, at least if she kept kneeling over him like this, hair falling around them like a screen, breathing in slow unison. She had put a hand on his left shoulder, and the other was resting on his knee; her breasts were framed between them, and while nothing was stirring in him right now, it was a beautiful view even from a purely aesthetic perspective. But he came alarmingly close to a lump in his throat when she offered him _options_ , as if there was anywhere else in the castle he wanted to be. And he didn't really think he wanted to fall asleep with hard metal at his back and beneath him. That was a guarantee of nightmares, after this.

"Your bed is fine," Shiro assured her, and accepted Allura's hand up. He felt a moment's regret that she hadn't tried to sweep him up into a full carry again, though given how he'd reacted when she'd tried to manhandle him during the flashback, he couldn't blame her. He let her lead him around to the foot of the bed and stopped there, looking at the mess he'd made of it.

"Oh! Let me get more sheets," Allura said, and let go of his hand to vanish into a door off to the side of the room.

Shiro tried not to feel bereft; she'd just gone into a closet. The room was still hers, gently lit, decorated in lavender and colored in blue. Her scent remained floating in the air. She'd taken his right hand to help him up, though, and the warmth of her hand didn't linger in the metal, wicking away too quickly into the flat, even room temperature that the castle maintained. He caught himself flexing the metal fingers and stopped himself, then had to consciously slow down his inhalation and exhalation as his breathing started to speed up again.

Allura emerged again, arms full of fabric, and Shiro bit back the urge to reach out for her and pull her close. Instead he just watched her closely as she started to spread out the sheets: the rustling sweep of her skirt, the skin of her back taut over the line of her spine as she bent forward, the way her hair tangled around her arm, impeding her until she brushed it back.

"Let me help," Shiro said. He didn't want to just stand there dumbstruck and useless; he needed to do something, even if it was as little as tucking the end of the sheet under the end of the mattress.

Allura looked at him and then let him do it, moving around to fuss with the pillows at the other end. She kept fiddling at the edge of the sheet even after they were finished, darting Shiro concerned looks. "Do you want me to stay here, or leave you alone for tonight?" she asked. "I can use another room. We have plenty."

The thought of Allura leaving caught Shiro hard and fast, like a punch to the gut, and he felt his chest constrict. "Don't go," he said, hearing his voice modulate into a plea and helpless to master it. "Stay. Please stay."

"Of course, Shiro." Allura's eyes creased sadly, but she smiled at him and came back around to usher him into bed. She laid down beside him and rested a hand on his arm, light and gentle, then slid in close for a chaste, gentle kiss. "I'm right here."

She didn't press against him, though, or come any closer than the hand on his arm. They'd already been more intimate than that--they'd pressed closer together in adjoining chairs in the mess hall, and slid their arms around each other in the lounge and on the bridge. Having her so close and not touching was another kind of loneliness. Shiro reached out and slid his arm around her waist, tugging her in.

"You don't have to be that careful. I remember what happened now. You're not going to take me by surprise again." She was still hesitant, tense against his attempt to pull her close, and he sighed. "I like it when you aren't careful with me."

Allura looked relieved. "Well, then, I shall abandon care," she said, her lips curving up in slow warning. Then she twisted closer, wrapped her arm around him and pulled them flush, her chest against his, her leg flung over his, the point of her chin digging into his shoulder. Her hand was spread against his back, and he felt her fingers tighten against his ribs, holding him like never intended to let go. He could see why she'd meant to keep her hair up earlier, because it was tangled around them both like it had a mind of its own, snaring on the joints of his metal arm and trying to creep into his mouth. He kept his arm very still, so not to pull it, and let it tickle the corner of his mouth. "No one will ever touch you like that again," she whispered, sliding her other hand under his cheek. "I won't allow it. None of us would let them, you know-"

"I know."

"-but I'll make sure that no one ever even _thinks_ of it," Allura finished, so fierce in her illogical promise that it made something in Shiro's chest lighten and settle to hear it. "I will always be here to look after you."

She was echoing someone, Shiro sensed, but it didn't matter; he felt safe in her arms all the same. Now that he did feel safe again, exhaustion was hitting hard, the dull drumming in his temples a summoning to sleep. Allura ran her thumb over his lips and he kissed it, drowsily, then closed his eyes and let himself drift on the certainty of her presence, her warm skin and her soothing scent and her tight grip. She was close enough that he could hear her breathe, and he timed his breathing to hers, in and out, long and slow, until he fell entirely into her rhythm.


	2. the morning after

He had expected nightmares even in her arms, but Shiro woke with only a vague sense of contentment and the weight of Allura's head on his shoulder. He was on his back now; he must have rolled in the night. Allura had shifted with him, managing to sprawl over his chest while still clutching him tight, and she was a surprisingly heavy weight for someone so slender. Shiro let himself wake up slowly, luxuriating in the warmth where their skin touched.

After a few minutes of quiet, Allura stirred on top of him, digging an accidental elbow into his ribs as she pushed herself up to look him in the face. He saw concern, worry, and a flash of protectiveness that made his heart stutter, and then she smiled at him and leaned down to give him a quick good-morning kiss. It started as a peck, but Shiro brought his hand up behind her head and opened his mouth into it, dragging them both down.

When they broke apart Shiro was breathing hard, and flushed with more than body heat. Allura's smile was brighter, just as fond but more light-hearted, and she squeezed Shiro's shoulder. Then, to Shiro's disappointment, she rolled off of him and knelt beside him on the bed.

"The mice were kind enough to bring us food," she told him, and her bright-eyed chirpiness was explained; she'd been awake longer. In his own sluggishness, he only now recognized that she'd bound her hair back up. "Do you want breakfast?"

She had lost her skirt somewhere last night, or perhaps when she'd woken this morning, and Shiro was distracted from an answer by all that the absence exposed. His gaze traveled up the nearly endless line of her thigh from knee to rounded hip, then caught at the "V" where a trail of white hair began and the curves of her legs and belly closed together to conceal its far end. His face burned, and his first instinct was to look away, towards the floating platter off to the side of the bed and the opened, rummaged-through drawers of Allura's dressing table.

"Or do you want me to lie back down?" she asked.

Her tone was light and teasing, and when Shiro looked up she was smiling, but he could see a tinge of worry in the slant of her eyebrows.

"Yes," Shiro said, and his voice was rougher than he'd meant it to be. He reached out towards her. "Yes, that one."

The worried slant vanished, and Allura sank down and rolled to straddle his waist, elbows bracketing his shoulders, mouth closing over his. A small, analytical part of Shiro took in the pose, matched it against newly-recovered memory, and anticipated of the gut-clench and freeze--but the rest of him surged up to meet Allura's touch, his hands rising to her shoulders and his eyes sliding closed, and the only movement in his gut was the pleasant tension of arousal coiling tighter. Under Allura, both his heart and his hindbrain whispered _safe_.

Last night's careful exploration had been cast aside; Shiro slid his hands down Allura's back without pausing to meditate on the texture of her skin or the pinch and slide of muscle under it, just trying to take in the feel of as much of it as he could touch. Allura clung to his shoulder for leverage and ran her fingers along the edge of his ear, the rise of his cheekbone, and the line of his jaw. Their desire, thwarted once, seemed to have redoubled in its awakening.

Shiro stopped at last when he felt Allura's hipbone under his flesh hand, and he rested his first two fingers at the start of the crease that ran down where her thigh and her belly met. He had to turn his head sideways to speak. "Can I-" he started.

"Yes," Allura said, cutting him off, and pressed a delicate kiss against the very tip of his ear. Her lips wandered downward, to the hinge of his jaw and then his neck below it, and Shiro lost focus for a moment.

With a little huff of laughter, Allura reached down and caught his hand in her own, guiding it inward. Shiro could feel a thick rim of flesh, satin-soft against his fingers but with a stiff core under its gentle give, and then an inner ring of even softer, welcoming wetness that felt manageably familiar to the touch. Still cupping her hand, Allura crooked her fingers over his, folding the first two inward.

"You can touch me," she assured him. "It won't hurt." He curled his fingers a bit more, feeling a warm and welcome heat around them. Her body tightened gently, and _that_ went straight to his cock. "Yes, _please_ , Shiro."

That was encouragement enough. Shiro stroked carefully upwards, and she flexed against and around him, pushing once with her fingers to guide his angle and giving a breathy sigh when he rubbed slow and firm against her inner walls. He swept the outer rim with his thumb; there didn't seem to be a clitoral equivalent, but her body tightened with _enthusiasm_ when he did it, so he repeated the motion.

"Tell me what you need," he said.

"That's- ah!" Shiro had just spread his fingers a little, but Allura clamped down hard. He opened his eyes, afraid he'd hurt her, but the expression on her face was as far from pained as he could imagine. Her cheeks were flushed slate-dark, and her eyes were storm-colored and half-closed. "Do that again," she demanded.

Shiro felt a thrill flutter through him at the sound of her voice, high and imperious and needy, and he groaned in answer as he did his best to comply. The sound seemed to waken Allura, and her gaze focused on him, still gentle but far more aware. She ran her hand down his chest, fingers spread wide and pressing down and skimming quickly past his stomach, and then stopped right where his pubic hair began.

"Show me where to touch you."

An answer seemed impossible, with her fingers light on him right there and her eyes sharp beneath drooping lids and the words 'touch you' repeating in his mind like lightning-strike after-images. But she didn't move her hand, even when Shiro's fingers in her twitched with reflexive want and she hissed out a pleased little breath, and so he had to drag his metal hand down from her side, where he'd settled a comfortable thumb in the warm hollow beneath her breast, and cover her own with it the way she'd covered his.

"Here," he said, closing his grip carefully to keep from pressing too hard. And then he laughed, a helpless rueful bark, when he remembered what he'd said that had made her hesitant. "It's not _that_ sensitive. That was an excuse," he said, and nudged her hand into movement. "This- this is fine. More than fine. Way more than fine," he said, and it came out another groan.

Allura laughed, light and pleased, and Shiro had to let go of her hand and clench at the sheets beneath him as she found a rhythm. He struggled to focus on what he was doing with his other hand, his fingers slipping and stuttering when she added a little twist to the motion. But his slip won another gasp, the loudest yet, and Allura's hips arched towards him until she was nearly cupped in his hand. Even with pleasure a fast-rising tide in his belly and his own hips twitching up into Allura's every stroke, Shiro was motivated to press on by her quiet cries.

His efforts only failed him again when the tide of his desire finally broke. He thrust into Allura's hand with one last groan, and she cradled his cock in her hand and stroked it gently with her thumb as he spent himself across both their stomachs. For a long moment he could only lie there and gasp, his hand lax, while Allura watched his face with interest and a baffling, heart-stopping sort of wonder in her eyes.

Shiro remembered himself before that wonder could fade, and deliberately met her eyes as he pressed back into her, both fingers bent and crooked out to make her tighten down again the way she had before. She responded with inspiring enthusiasm, and Shiro watched her eyes flutter closed, thrilled at the little whimpering sounds she made while he sank in as far as he could go. The soft texture of her was rougher at the very top, clamping on like her body was trying to squeeze the blood from his fingertips--oh, Shiro thought, that might even be what _was_ happening, and his softening cock did its hopeless best to stand to attention all over again at that notion.

"Shiro-" His name modulated up into a high, trilling cry, and for one squeezing second Shiro thought that he was never going to get his hand back. Then everything relaxed, and Shiro slid loose, pausing with his knuckles against his thigh in case there was some follow-up she might need. But Allura opened her eyes, smiled at him, and reached in and pushed his hand down and away.

Her fingers tangled with his. She tugged his hand up, then, and kissed his knuckles, still drowsy-eyed and smiling. "That was wonderful, Shiro."

It took him a moment to find his own words, lost in the curl of her lips and the glimmer in her eyes. "Good. I wanted it to be."

Allura didn't seem to mind his fumbling statement of the obvious. She sank down to lie beside him, a slow uncurling like a cat stretching out in the sun, and nestled her head against his shoulder again. "And for you, that was...?" She reached out, flung an arm over him, and let her fingers wander idly back and forth against his chest.

Shiro slipped his arm around her shoulders as a backrest and rubbed circles on her shoulder with his thumb. "Great," he assured her. "That was great."

"It was wonderful," Allura repeated, with emphasis, then gave him a conspiratorial smile. "I think we can safely call that a successful first."

"After a bad trial run?" Shiro asked, suppressing a squirm of embarrassment. "I don't want to pretend that last night didn't happen." He paused, then admitted, "We might need to talk about it later." Even if his hindbrain had registered Allura as safe this morning, he already knew not to trust that there weren't more surprises in store from his fractured memory.

Allura nodded, looking thoughtful. "We should talk regardless. My father always said that talking about what you wanted from each other could be very stimulating, when you were with the right partner."

Her expression went distant, nostalgic rather than sad but still far-away in memory. Shiro shifted, slid her off his shoulder so that he could roll in to face her, and then kissed her. When he pulled away, she smiled, her eyes bright and present again.

"Later," she said decisively. "This morning we will lie in and eat breakfast in bed and be self-indulgent. No one will bother us." She nosed in closer, tucking her head into the hollow of Shiro's neck.

Scent was the last thing Shiro had been paying conscious attention to earlier, but now, as he rested his cheek against the top of Allura's head, he could smell the spicy-floral scent of the kolliss perfume and remembered her open dressing table. "Did you put more of the kolliss in your hair?" he murmured, absently curious.

"In my hair, and on the sheets and pillows." Allura chuckled sheepishly. "And the mice got, ah, overenthusiastic about helping and sprayed it on the curtains."

Shiro should have laughed at the thought, but instead he felt his throat tighten with emotion. He could imagine Allura, still in bed with him, coaxing the mice into rummaging through her dressing table and bringing her the bottle; he could almost see her dousing her hair as she bound it back up, and then working the pillows and sheets carefully out from under him long enough to treat them too. He remembered Allura's hair falling down around her, the way she'd let it tangle around them both just because it helped him stay centered, and his chest almost hurt from the warmth singing through it.

He pulled Allura close and kissed her again. When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers. "Thank you."

"I want to give you whatever you need, Shiro," Allura said, her face serious. "I know I can't always protect you in battle. But in my bed--in _our_ bed," she said, and Shiro felt his breath catch, "I'll always do my best to keep you safe."

Even Allura couldn't always keep him safe, Shiro knew, not from his own memories. He'd spent too many nights at their mercy to think he could escape them anywhere. But Allura's arm tight around him was the clutch of a lioness ready to fight. It might not be a guarantee, but it was a comfort, and that was better.

"I trust you," Shiro said, voice thick, because it was the only answer he could give to that fierce affection.

Allura smiled at him, brilliant and bright. He smiled back at her and nestled closer into her embrace. This close he could feel her heartbeat against his skin, and his own heart seemed to beat in time with it, drumming out _safe, safe, safe_ , like a promise that they both could keep.


End file.
